CD Reviews

Hard'n'heavy prog - as safe as Swiss bank

Golovanov Alexey | Limassol, Cyprus | 12/31/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Toad" is a rather unusual Swiss hard-rock outfit, established in 1971 on the ashes of short-lived "Brainticket" (also of interest -Cottonwoodhill. The debut album (Toadfeatures founding members: Werner Froelich (bass), Cosimo Lampis (drums) and Vic Vergeant (ex-Hawkwind, but for a while only) on guitar, and a certain Jagger (but Benjamin) - as a session vocalist (who left straight after for better pastures, but dissapeared completely - to my knowledge at least). "Tomorrow Blue" (1972) is more mature album, which shows a serious move towards blues and progressive. It was produced by Martin Birch (the recording engineer of Deep Purple and its side projects, Sabbath etc) - which is enough to give you an idea of the music and its quality - very high. The same year the band issued the live recording of their gig in Basel, and in 1975 - "Dreams" (a drifter towards much weaker commercial mainstream). This particular album is exceptional."